


all is well (but i'm scared as hell)

by cascrane (thunder_and_stars)



Category: no sleep in the city of dreams
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 01:29:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28716543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thunder_and_stars/pseuds/cascrane
Summary: he’s not supposed to be here.he’s not supposed to be sitting in the waiting room of the hospital, worn sneakers tap-tap-tapping against the floor, unable to keep still.none of this was supposed to happen.it’s his fault, he thinks briefly, because it has to be someone’s fault, and he doesn’t know who else he could possibly blame. it’s his fault.





	1. i didn't mean to (fall apart)

“I didn’t mean to,” Maze mumbles slowly, fingers scratching across the concrete sidewalk beneath him, leaving faint trails of blood behind. “I thought… I didn’t mean to.”

“I know,” El says softly, sitting next to him, fingers carding slowly, gently, through Maze’s hair. “It’s not your fault, Maze.”

He doesn’t know where they are. Maze had panicked, started running, and El had simply followed, waiting until he ran out of breath and finally slowed. It doesn’t matter where they are.

“I’m here,” he tells Maze quietly, staying next to him, sitting on the curb.

“I should have done better,” Maze mumbles, rocking back and forth slowly, rhythmically. He switches into Spanish, mumbling words El doesn’t know.

“I’m here,” El placates again. “We’re okay.”

It’s not enough.

“It’s going to be okay,” El tries again, attempting to hide the echoing hollowness of the promise. “Everyone’s going to be fine.”

Right?

“I’m sorry,” Maze says finally, sounding younger than El has ever heard him, then buries his face in El’s shoulder and melts into the other boy’s embrace. 

For a moment, it’s okay. El is warm and there and safe and  _ home _ . And then, suddenly, something snaps, and it’s not okay, because nothing is okay, and El and Maze aren’t quite  _ El and Maze _ anymore.

Maze is running. His lungs ache and burn alongside his (probably shattered) ribs, chest throbbing as he tries not to fall apart.

It’s not enough to ground him. He feels like he’s floating in this endless grey mist, stuttering down on beneath him, waiting for him to fall into the empty abyss. His head hurts, pounds, and he almost falls and stumbles.

_ Marcos _ .

_ Marcos. _

_ Maze. _

_ Maz. _

_ Listen to me. _

_ It’s not your fault. _

_ Marcos. _

_ Catch me, I’m falling. _

Maze is running.

_ Maze’s eyes go wide. He pushes ineffectively against his brother’s chest. “Just go,” he yells. “Go!” _

_ His brother can’t see it.  _

_ How could he be so  _ stupid _? _

_ This is his fault. _

He can’t do anything but run.

_ Alejandro is falling. El isn’t there. Maze can’t do anything. _

_ “Marcos?” _

_ “Marcos, what’s happening?” _

_ “Marcos, are you there? What’s happening? Where are you?” _

_ “Are you okay? Marcos?” _

_ Why aren’t you here? _

_ Why didn’t you  _ do _ anything? _

_ Alejandro is hurt (dead? no, he can’t be dead, he can’t be, he’s Alejandro, he can’t be dead) and Maze is stuck, chest aching and head pounding and blood rushing so loudly in his ears that he can’t think, and for a second, it sounds like the ocean, and he thinks of Sofie, he thinks of El, but they’re not here (are they? are they hurt too?), and it’s just Maze, and he can’t do anything. _

_ He’s not good at this. He can’t do magic. He can’t fight. _

_ He’s a messenger. He’s a kid. _

_ It’s not fair. _

_ Reality doesn’t care about fair. Reality doesn’t care if Ale lives or dies. Reality is all there is, so it’s just Alejandro hurt, and El missing, and Maze is stuck. _

_ This shouldn’t have to be on him. (Maybe he deserves it.) _

_ Alejandro is somewhere, hurt, and Maze is here, unmoving. _

Maze is running. His mouth fills with the copper crimson tang of blood, and he keeps going. He’s not even sure if he’s wearing his shoes, and all there is is sidewalk and wind and blood rushing in his ears and metal on his tongue, and he runs. (He can’t be stuck again.)

Maze stumbles, finally, and stops. He crumples to the concrete, trying to sit on the curb and likely failing, and he can’t breathe. The brick wall of the building behind him digs into the curve of his spine.

He doesn’t know where he is. He doesn’t know where anything is. El is somewhere left behind, because El was warm and gentle and familiar, and he didn’t deserve it.

He finds his phone in his pocket. It’s ringing.

He doesn’t answer it. Finally, it goes to voicemail, and he scrolls through his missed texts.

_ marcos,  _ Sofia has been texting insistently, just his name, over and over. Then,  _ where are you? are you okay? _

_ i’m scared, marcos. where are you? please call. _

He drops his phone back into his pocket, lets his arms sag until his hands rest on the ground, head lolling down, knees pulled as close to his chest as they can go before they restrict his breathing.

Maze is stuck.

He carefully pulls out the phone again, and taps a message to someone, sending a screenshot of his location along with it.

_ can you come get me? _

He sits on the sidewalk for nearly twenty minutes before anyone shows up. Then, footsteps beat around the corner, and Sofie is there, in front of him, wrapping him in a hug. 

She’s crying. (It’s his fault.)

He thinks, briefly, that maybe he should have called El, because El is magic and El is safe and El is  _ home _ , but Sofie is family. Alejandro is (was? please, not  _ was _ ) family. He needs his family, right now.

El will understand. (Right?)

Ale is hurt, and Maze is stuck, but Sofie is here, next to him, in the uncomfortable wooden chair with the sticky plastic cushion in the waiting room where they left the children. 

Ale isn’t dead, he tries to remind himself. Ale can’t be dead.

Sofie is crying.

Ale can’t be dead.

Right?


	2. don't cry (i'm right here)

They’re sitting on the stoop of Maze’s house, because Maze refuses to go inside, refuses to go anywhere else, just sank to the ground and stopped moving, glancing around rapidly, as if he’s going to see something that will change what happened.

“This can’t be happening,” Maze mumbles, fingers covering his mouth, digging into his skin, nearly drawing blood.

El catches his hands gently and pulls them away from his face, rubbing his thumbs over Maze’s knuckles as Maze falls apart.

“Hey,” El says. “Hey, don’t cry.”

He brushes a tear from Maze’s cheek with his thumb, cupping the boy’s chin and trying to offer him a warm smile.

“I’ve got you,” El promises. “We’re going to be okay.”

It’s not enough.

Maze’s throat burns as he gasps in air, blinking back tears from reddened eyes, unable to think, breathe. El rubs his back gently, hand moving in small slow circles, trying to calm Maze’s heaving breaths.

“What am I supposed to do now?” Maze asks, breathless and hoarse and absolutely terrified. “What do I do now?”

“I’ve got you, Maz,” El repeats. “We’ll get through this.”

“How?” Maze asks. He’s rocking back and forth now, breaths still coming fast and heavy and ragged, back and forth, back and forth. “What do I do, El? What am I supposed to do?”

“This isn’t your fault,” El says, and he tries to make it true, wants it to be true, but he’s not sure if it is. 

“What if he’s dead?” Maze asks again, chest heaving, tears spilling over, eyes wild and unfocused. “What did I do? What do I do?”

“Hey, don’t cry,” El says. “Don’t cry. It’ll be okay.”

“How?” Maze asks again, and El still doesn’t have an answer.

“He’s not dead,” El says. “I swear to you, he’s not dead.”

Maze blinks rapidly, still rocking, back and forth, back and forth, fingers tapping rapidly on the knees of his jeans, unable to stay still.

“We can go see him, when you’re ready,” El promises, because he thinks Maze has been awake and panicking for so long that he’s forgotten most of what happened in the aftermath.

“What do I do now?” Maze asks, again, and El is starting to get a little bit worried.

“I don’t know,” El admits. “We’ll go see him when you’re ready. I’ll be right with you until you are, and after. We’ll figure this out, Maz.”

Finally, as the sun dips below the horizon and the dark clouds in the sky threaten to pour down on them, they walk slowly to the hospital, El holding Maze’s hand the whole way.

When they get there, El isn’t allowed in. Maze is in no shape to reasonably protest this, but he gets this look in his eyes like his world is going to crumble into dust if he moves away from El, but Sofie comes and takes his hand gently and leads him into the room, and El pretends it isn’t clear that they’ve both been crying.

El sits in one of the chairs in the waiting room, foot tapping against the floor, until Maze finally comes back.

When he does, he looks paler than El has ever seen him, and he melts into El’s arms, head against his chest, sobs muffled by the fabric of El’s hoodie.

“It’s going to be okay,” El promises again. 

Maze clearly wants to argue, but he’s also been awake for three days and he hasn’t eaten and he can’t form words, let alone a coherent sentence, so El takes him home and makes him soup (from a can, because Maze maintains that El can’t cook) and watches carefully as Maze cradles the mug and barely sips at it until it’s been three hours and it’s cold.

“Thank you,” Maze says, when they wake up in the morning and he seems far more coherent.

“Always,” El says. “He’s my family too, in all the ways that matter.”

“Thank you,” Maze says again. “I’m sorry about everything.”

“None of it is your fault,” El says. Maze only gives him a wry smile, like he doesn’t believe that for a second but doesn’t have the resolve to argue, and El thinks that counts as an improvement.


	3. i'm not ready (to lose my home)

He’s not supposed to be here. 

He’s not supposed to be sitting in the waiting room of the hospital, worn sneakers tap-tap-tapping against the floor, unable to keep still. 

None of this was supposed to happen. 

It’s his fault, he thinks briefly, because it has to be someone’s fault, and he doesn’t know who else he could possibly blame. It’s his fault. 

The chair is uncomfortable, hard wood pressing into his spine, the cushion under him worn enough to be flat and lumpy, plastic coated and sticky. 

His sister is seated beside him, her fingers laced tightly in his, trying to find some semblance of comfort in his presence. (It isn’t enough.) Her dark hair spills down her back in messy, uncontained waves, dark shadows smudged into the skin under her eyes, reminding him just how long it’s been since they slept. 

The woman at the reception desk glances over at them, every couple minutes, as if she’s wondering how long they’ve been there, how long they’ll stay. 

He’ll stay forever, until he gets to see his brother. 

His sister dozes off in the chair beside him, and he doesn’t wake her, because she needs the rest, and he can’t find the strength to tell her to go home to get some sleep. He can’t bear to be alone right now. 

When his sister wakes again, she checks her messages, turns off her phone, and puts it down. Then, she clicks it on, checks her messages again, and keeps repeating the cycle. 

Finally, when he thinks the woman at the reception desk is going to confiscate the phone if his sister does that again, she taps out a message and sends it. 

He doesn’t fall asleep. He can’t sleep. He’s so tired, but he can’t sleep. Time passes in a messy, blurry haze. 

Two hours later, according to the clock on the wall that he thinks might be broken, his younger brother comes running in, hair wild and eyes wide, rain soaking through his thin sweatshirt. 

He didn’t know it was raining. 

His brother goes over to him quickly, sinks into the chair next to him, buries his face in his older brother’s shoulder, and tries to keep himself composed. 

“Marcos,” his sister breathes softly, like she was afraid he wasn’t going to show up. 

He can’t manage any kind of smile, but he brushes his fingers over her wrist, and it’s enough. 

There are a lot of them, gathered into the small waiting room. He and his sister haven’t moved, and beside them sits their brother Marcos. 

Next to Marcos is a boy with copper hair and a worn grey hoodie, holding Marcos’s hand. 

On the other side of the room, there are two people that he vaguely recognizes, a young man and a young woman, in some kind of disarrayed uniform. 

He can’t quite focus anymore. 

When they finally tell him that they can go see his brother, he almost cries, because he’s been waiting for so long and he’s not sure he wants to know what happened. 

He keeps thinking about the phone ringing, two in the morning, cutting through the dark silence. He keeps thinking about his sister answering the phone, eyes going wide, turning to him with a look of horror. 

He’s scared of what he’s going to see in the hospital room. 

What if Danny isn’t okay? What if Danny dies? (What are they, without Danny? Who is he, without his brother?)

But he follows the nurse as she leads them to a room, his hand still gripping his sister’s, his younger brother trailing close behind them. 

The halls smell faintly of flowers, underneath the copper tang of blood on his tongue and the sting of disinfectant in his eyes. he can’t decide which part of that is the worse. 

Danny’s room smells like smoke. This shouldn’t be surprising. Danny often smells like smoke. (He is a firefighter, after all, and the scent clings to his hair and his clothes and his skin for hours.)

But it scares him. 

What if Danny isn’t okay?

He steps into the room with his sister, then reaches for his little brother’s hand as he joins them in the room. 

Danny is in the bed. 

“Hey, Danny,” his sister says softly, and he pretends he can’t hear the way her voice trembles. “We’re all here.”

He should say something. He should do something. He’s always been the loud one.

But he can’t think. and he can’t breathe. 

And Danny is hurt, eyes closed, unmoving, and he doesn’t know what to do. 

It’s his fault, he thinks again. Danny was going to stay with them, but then he convinced Marcos to come stay, so Danny said he would go stay with a friend so they could all have space. 

It’s his fault, because he needs it to be someone’s fault, because he needs the anger to outweigh the sheer terror and keep him afloat as it threatens to drown him. 

He needs Danny to be okay. (He’s not ready to have to be the strong one.)


	4. flowers dance across my skin (whispers in the air)

The hospital is horrible. The walls are all this pale beige horror, terrible and restricting and tight, and his chest aches like he has asthma. The halls smell like daisies.

It’s horrible. Maze -- Marcos, now, because he’s too old to be going by  _ Maze _ still -- is sitting in the wooden and plastic hospital waiting room chair that is hard and sticky and uncomfortable, and he’s staring blankly at the beige wall, eyes unfocused and chin resting in his hands, elbows pressed into his knees.

Sofia --  _ Sofie _ , because she’s always been  _ Sofie _ \-- is sitting in the chair next to him. Her fingers brush across the knee of his jeans, and he quickly drops his hand and laces his fingers with hers, as she squeezes his hand so tightly it hurts.

He wants to cry. (He has to be strong for his sister.) He wants El. (El isn’t there.)

He thinks, briefly, that he hasn’t seen El in almost two years, that he misses the other boy -- man, now -- more than he thought possible. He thinks about the cat that still lives with his family, still around after all these years, the black cat that still makes him think of snowstorms and hot chocolate and family. He thinks of dinners with his siblings and mother and stepfather and El right next to him, out of place but perfectly fitting in still, always right there.

El should be here. (El should know.)

But he can’t find his phone. He can’t find the words. He doesn’t even know where he would start. (Where do you start after all those years together and then what feels like a lifetime apart?)

The two years had passed so quickly. He hadn’t even realized it had been so long. Except now, it feels like it has been an eternity, and his other half is missing, and he can’t quite breathe. He misses summer sunsets and night patrols across the bridge and subway rides in the dead of winter and snowflakes in his hair and on his tongue and being with the only person who ever filled that little empty space inside him.

And he thinks about the cat again. He thinks about El, standing in the snow in a hoodie, cradling a kitten. He thinks about sitting on the couch under the blanket, talking about what to name the little creature. He thinks about arguing with Ale about stupid names, and it feels like something in him breaks.

(How did they ever get here?)

Sofie is next to him, hand in his, gripping it like a lifeline, and he thinks vaguely about how useless it is to use something sinking to keep yourself afloat, but he doesn’t say anything.

Instead, when he finally finds the words, he looks up to Sofie and tries to force a faint smile onto his face.

“Want me to braid your hair?” he offers, which isn’t what he meant to say, but Sofie blinks back tears and nods, turning her back towards him a little.

He pulls his legs up onto the chair in front of him and sits sideways, which he’s gotten just about too big to do comfortably, and starts braiding Sofie’s hair. Sofie’s never been good at braiding her own hair. Ale used to do it for her, when they were kids, since Ale’s hair was almost as long as hers for years. 

(Ale isn’t here.)

If Ale was here, was okay, then Sofie and Marcos wouldn’t be sitting in the hospital, waiting to hear if he’s okay.

Finally, long after Marcos finishes braiding his sister’s hair, right after she wakes up from one of her short stints of rest, a nurse tells them they can go in. Sofie’s hand finds Marcos’s. He doesn’t even think about letting go.

For a second, he thinks he’s okay. The hall smells like daisies.

For a second, in the hallway, hand in Sofie’s, he can almost breathe.

For a second, in Ale’s room, he looks almost like he’s okay, like he’s just asleep, like he’s going to be fine. (He has to be fine. He’s  _ Ale _ .)

For a second, it almost feels like being a kid again, in the family home with his brothers and sister, and the world isn’t impossibly heavy pressing down on his shoulders.

But it’s not okay. (How could anything be okay?)

Marcos sits in the living room of the family home. His mother isn’t here. Sofie is in her apartment, in her room, locked away in the darkness. The cozy house suddenly feels so big, so empty, so  _ lifeless _ , and Marcos wants to sob again.

The small black cat, since fae never grew very big, is pressing faer head against his shin. He’s sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor in the dark.

For a second, Marcos is fifteen, sitting on the couch with El, petting the small kitten, arguing with Ale about the name, laughing with Danny and Sofie and his mother.

El isn’t here. (Maybe El isn’t Marcos’s home, anymore.)

Danny is gone. 

Danny was the first to suddenly be  _ gone _ , a few years ago. He had always been a firefighter. He loved it. He said it was what he was meant to do, his calling. Their mother had gotten angry, said it wasn’t what his calling but his demise. (She had almost broken, when they lost him.)

It didn’t make this any harder, or any easier. They were separate and impossible events, and it wasn’t fair.

Someone stands in front of Marcos. They kneel, pet the cat softly, and put a gentle hand on his shoulder. Marcos takes a second to tear his eyes away from the old carpet.

El sits in front of him, waiting patiently to see if Marcos is ready. The cat climbs into El’s lap. Fae always liked El better than Marcos. Fae seems sad and solemn, though, as if fae knows what has happened.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” El says softly, and Marcos pretends it doesn’t break him.

The cat looks despondent in El’s lap, as if fae knows that faer favorite person in the world is  _ gone _ . (He can’t be gone, can he?)

Marcos hates how it’s all suddenly so real. He’s crying. He doesn’t care, anymore.

“Maze,” El says, soft and breathless, and Marcos (Maze?) manages to meet his gaze. “I’m so sorry. I wish I knew.”

_ I wish you told me _ .

“I would have been there with you,” El continues, and it hurts more than anger.

“He was supposed to be fine,” Marcos says, his voice hoarse and his throat burning. “He wasn’t supposed to… he can’t be gone.”

“I know,” El says, catching Marcos’s hands in his. “I know. But he is.” El is almost crying now too, which surprises Marcos more than it should.

“I miss him,” Marcos says, which is stupid, but it’s also painfully, unfairly  _ true. _

“I miss him too,” El says. “And I missed you. But, Maze, he loved you, and Sofie.”

“He loved you too,” Marcos says, because El was truly part of their family for so long.

“He wouldn’t want you here, sitting in the dark and crying, would he?” El prompts, nudging Marcos’s knee with his own.

“No,” Marcos admits quietly.

“Do you want to go watch the sunrise?” El asks. “For him?” Marcos manages a faint smile, that, despite the grief-filled edge and the tears still shining on his cheeks, feels genuine. He nods.

Marcos and El sit by the river on a park bench, watching the still-dark water as the kitten-grey light of early morning turns to the brilliant, colorful haze of sunrise, paint splashed across the sky and turning the clouds a glowing orange-copper-gold. It’s the best sunrise they’ve had in a while.

“Ale would have loved this,” Marcos says softly. El wears a small, sad smile.

“It’s going to be okay,” El promises tentatively.

“Is it?” Marcos asks.

“I don’t know,” El says. “But I’m here for you, no matter what. I’m not going anywhere.”

_ Not this time, not again. _

It’s not enough to get rid of the overwhelming grief. It’s not going to replace his brother. But it’s a start, and a start is a whole lot better than nothing.


End file.
